A/N: Wow ya'll really flatter me. Thank you so much for the reviews! I wish I could say I'm going to keep up this pace for update, but I go back to work on Monday. I'll try to get an update every week though. Reading through this one, it's not my favorite chapter, but it had to be written for the rest of the roommates to catch up. Find out what happened with Macey, Liz and Bex at the party. Enjoy!
Chapter 8
In case you were wondering, we didn't go to sleep, even though I had the impending deadline of a paper. Sure I got ready for bed while Bex was still floating on a cloud and was in my flossing process when the door opened again.
"We are the champions, my friend," Macey sang horribly off key with Liz on her back. Despite hours inside a hot house, the only noticeable differences about Macey were that her hair was now pulled into a ponytail, a slight stench of beer and she was glowing. McHenry Cosmetics setting spray. Macey always swore by it but until now, I didn't know its power.
"We are the champions. We are the champions!" Macey passed the invisible mic to Liz on her back.
"No time for losers!" And they completed the duet in unison.
"BECAUSE WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS! Of the world!"
Bex emerged from our room now fully pajama'd, and applauded.
"Bravo!" Macey took a bow and Liz toppled off and was laughing on the floor.
"Our little blonde roommate has a secret talent!" Macey pulled her up from the ground and she was blushing now. She was glowing along with Macey and I knew she was a little tispy too.
"Liz isn't a lightweight like we thought?" I sat down on the ottoman, making an effort to avoid the couch. I saw what had happened there just minutes before.
Macey gave it a thoughtful look but was beaming, "We never had to find out, because Liz is a master pong player!" I had seen her first shot that sunk in the cup perfectly. Then I thought of how well Jonas played pool. It was sort of a surprise, but at the same time I believed it.
"Liz, how many games did we play?" Macey slung her arm over Liz's shoulder.
"In a row? Or total?" I'm sure the data from tonight was probably going into Liz's form of a diary that had nothing but statistics and research.
"Total."
"Fifteen!" Bex's mouth dropped. Usually people only played five games tops before they were blacking out. Macey just looked smug.
"And how many games did we win?"
"Fourteen!"
"What happened in one of the games?" Don't get me wrong, fourteen was impressive, but I was curious. Liz blushed again.
"Well we were playing Preston and Nathan for the third time and one of the balls splashed beer into my eye. I couldn't see very well."
"Don't worry about that one Liz. The terms weren't too terrible."
"What terms?" Bex was the only one who was still shocked. She hadn't seen how Preston and Macey played. They had high stakes for the first game and Preston wasn't one to let that go. Especially if he lost.
"Well after a phone call to his mother about an embarrassing kiss on Fourth of July that lead to him crying and knocking over the punch bowl, he said he wanted a rematch. So we played again, they lost again and now Liz gets an all access tour in Washington. I was feeling pretty good and thought of what else I could get out of him so I pushed it one more game."
"And what did he get?"
"Preston got nothing. But Nathan got a pretty nice kiss." Liz erupted in laughter.
"You should've seen his face! He was already grinning and closing is eyes then when you went to Nathan!" Bex stifled a laugh but I was just shocked.
"He wasn't a bad kisser. A little too scruffy for my liking though."
Macey had a self satisfied smirk, one that had nothing with Nathan the 'not bad kisser'. I remembered a few stories about an annoying boy that she used to play with, and I saw the look in her eye when she saw Preston again. She wanted a little revenge, but it went deeper than that.
"I call Liz the next time we play." Bex pulled Liz toward her.
"I don't think so, Rebecca." Macey pulled her back. "I found my little rookie, I get dibs." Bex tried pulling her back and poor Liz was like a ragdoll between them.
"Macey you get to keep Liz. Bex already has a partner." I sent her a smirk and she started pouting.
"Cammie, I'll be your partner, but-" I waved my hand and rolled my eyes.
"Not me. I'm thinking of a certain boy," I made kissy faces to remind her like she would ever forget. She blushed and Macey sprang into action.
"You kissed Grant?!"
"Technically he kissed me… the first time." She had a devilish smile and I was prepared for a dramatic retelling of the events.
"What? How? When?" Liz was going through the checklist of basic questions to get the story that she wanted. Bex just smiled and let the silence wash over us to ensure all eyes were on her. She got up and walked to the fridge and opened a can of coke. She really was one for dramatic pauses, but even I thought it was a bit much.
"Just tell us!" Liz wasn't one to wait when it was already after two in the morning.
"We got to the party…"
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It had taken forty five minutes to tell the whole story. Of course it could have been summarized into this:
They saw each other across the room and he said she looked beautiful. They started dancing in one of the rooms and he left to get them some drinks. While he was gone another drunk guy asked her to dance but was getting really handsy. Although Bex could easily have handled herself, Grant came to her rescue and saved her. (I mentioned that he was like George McFly and it was a real Back to the Future moment, but she didn't know that movie). Then he took her hand and got away from the crowds outside. They dipped their feet in the pool and he kissed her. After that they danced a little longer and she said she had to wake up early tomorrow and needed to get back. A blatant lie, but it was a classy way of inviting him over. Like the prince charming that he was he offered to take her back and even paid for the Uber (I know, right!). And then they started playing the ever classy game of truth or dare which turned into a makeout session initiated by Bex.
Of course if she just told it like this, we wouldn't have gotten how he flexed his arms when pushing the guy or the way his blue eyes matched the sparkling pool water. And she definitely wouldn't have gotten the same response that she did.
"He's your soul mate!" Liz was smiling like a five year old that got ice cream for dinner.
"When are you seeing him again?"
"Saturday for sure. Is that too soon?" Liz was eager to answer.
"Of course not! You should see him as soon as possible. What is he doing tomorrow?"
"No way! You can't do that! One week for an actual date is perfect timing." While Liz was the genius in all things science, Macey was a genius in all things boy and dating. Without her I never would've gotten one date with Josh, of course now that doesn't seem too awful.
"But one week is so far away! What if he forgets about you?" Unfortunately that came off exactly as bad as it sounded. Bex's face kind of sunk and Macey glared at Liz.
"He's not going to forget her. He asked her out. He likes her."
"It's true. He's pretty crazy about you, his friends told me." I stated my only useful fact and it brightened her up a little. But then there was silence in the room and my three roommates were staring at me like I just grew an extra head.
"What?"
"You met his friends? Without even meeting him?" Macey's voice started raising with every word.
"I was wondering why the pencil thrower was here," Bex added as if that was the most interesting thing from when I entered.
"Cam! You brought a boy here?" Liz on the edge of her seat, literally. She was about to fall off the couch if she moved another inch.
"He walked me back since it was late. Safety reasons."
Macey rolled her eyes, "Sure Cammie. I'm sure he was very concerned about safety."
"Wait, how did you meet Grant's friends?"
"Well while you were surprising everyone with your beer pong talents, I wanted a little air so I went outside and saw a pool table with a bunch of guys."
"And you actually walked up to them? Wow, Flash, you've got guts."
"Yeah, well all of those guys were all of Grant's friends and we played pool and ate pizza. It was nothing really." Liz and Bex didn't look as convinced.
"It was nothing? If it was nothing you wouldn't have gotten an escort back here." Bex did have a point. I had an uphill battle getting accepted into the group by David and they didn't have to invite me back.
"He just came to get his shirt back."
Liz's eyes went wide for the hundredth time that night, "To get his shirt back?"
"Oh yeah. Cammie forgot to mention that the pencil thrower is also the guy from the laundry room."
"Cammie! The laundry room guy hung out with you all night and walked you back! Why didn't you say something?" Liz was up and pacing.
"Ok we can't keep calling him 'laundry room guy' or 'pencil thrower', it takes too long."
"Oh I'm sorry, but you just forgot to mention his name."
Whoops. I really was bad at story telling, always leaving details out.
"His name is Zach. He went to school with Grant and now they're roommates."
"Zach," Macey tried the name on for size, "That's a pretty sexy name."
"Macey! We're just friends." Sure, he was pretty attractive but I just got into this friend group. I don't think I need to start crushing on one of them yet, no matter how hard Lucas tried. Now Macey and Liz rolled their eyes.
"Sure Cammie. Is there any other details you forgot to mention?"
Lets see, Zach is the dryer stealer, pizza, walked back. What else?
"Oh yeah!" A lightbulb went off in my mind and then I felt the embarrassment all over again. "I ran into DeeDee and Josh." Liz finally fell off the couch.
"Are you kidding me? You let us talk and talk and you didn't mention running into your ex and his new girlfriend?!"
"You didn't come find us? I would have beat their faces in." Bex had a murderous look on her face. I much preferred the glowing Bex.
"What was Josh even doing there?" Macey had venom in her voice. She remembered how quick Josh was to agree to our breakup. He said it made sense anyway since we were going to be hours apart.
"He was visiting DeeDee," I spat out. I wished I didn't sound like that. "Look I'm not mad that he was there really."
"I am." Bex scowled.
"It's not like I expected him to stay single forever."
"Yeah, but I expected him to stay single at least a month."
That memory still made my heart hurt. Sure our breakup was mutual for the most part. But I still hadn't moved on and he certainly did. A week after we broke up in fact, with the same girl he said was just a friend.
"We hate her. And him. We hate them." Liz summed up for all of us.
"What kind of girl takes another girl's guy after three days?"
"I've got a few words for it."
"Look guys, it wasn't that bad. I mean yeah, I was embarrassed at first, but Zach kind of saved me."
"How?" They all started smiling again and that really worried me.
"He kind of in a way made it look like he was my boyfriend." The only sound in the room was the humming of the fridge. They were sharing looks, having a silent conversation without me. Macey nodded.
"He's got it bad." The flu, chickenpox, amnesia?
"Got what bad?" Bex was smiling like I was such a cute little girl.
"Oh Cam, he's totally in love with you." There's no way. We just officially met and he was just being a good friend.
"No he is not! We hated each other. He was just being a friend. I'm sure Nick or Lucas would've done the same thing."
"Sure Cammie," Macey gave me a knowing smile.
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After all the commotion and a little more discussion about what Bex should do for her date, we went to bed. At 4 am. I closed my eyes for what had to have been ten seconds and woke up at nine. My body ached and it took all of my might to get out of bed.
The smell of coffee was already wafting through the air and Liz was already dressed and sitting on the couch with her laptop.
"Morning Cammie. Do you want to study today?" I really just wanted to go back to sleep, but I had a paper to write and a phone call that would probably last a long time. Besides, after getting Liz's key to biology, I felt invincible.
"Not today Liz. I don't have another test for a month."
I took my cup of coffee and went back to the laptop on my bed. What was my paper even supposed to be about? I pulled out the assignment details to find the prompt.
Can first impressions of someone change?
I instantly thought about Zach. When I first met him, I hated him. He haunted my dreams and I dreamed of him on a spin cycle. Yeah, they could change.
